Hanzal, Jokinen lift Coyotes to win over Stars

Dec 11, 2008 - 5:28 AM

DALLAS (Ticker) -- Martin Hanzal snapped a tie early in the
third period with his second goal of the game as the Phoenix
Coyotes recorded a 5-3 triumph over the Dallas Stars on
Wednesday in a battle of Pacific Division rivals.

After missing his team's previous six games with a shoulder
injury, Olli Jokinen netted a pair of power-play goals for
Phoenix, which snapped a two-game losing streak.

"It's been a month since the last time I scored a goal," said
Jokinen, who also scored twice on November 9 in a 4-2 victory
over the San Jose Sharks. "It's always good to score, but the
bottom line is, we got two points for a win."

Steven Reinprecht added an empty-netter with 24 seconds left and
Ilya Bryzgalov made 29 saves for the Coyotes.

Rookie Fabian Brunnstrom, defenseman Trevor Daley and James Neal
scored for Dallas, which fell to 2-2-0 during agitator Sean
Avery's absence due to a six-game suspension.

"Bad things happen and breaks go against you, but you have to
find ways to overcome," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We had
some unfortunate breaks, we were hanging around the game, but we
are finding ways to beat ourselves."

With the game tied at 3-3, Turco played the puck behind his own
net to Daley. It awkwardly caromed off the blue-liner's stick
and trickled out to Hanzal, who tapped it into the vacant net at
5:21 for his eighth goal of the season.

"I got pretty lucky," Hanzal admitted. "(Turco) didn't handle
the puck and it hit (Daley's) stick on the backhand. The puck
came out to me."

"I didn't see what happened behind the net at all," Turco said.
"We did a lot of great little things, which is a great thing for
us, but we're going to continue to move forward as a group."

After Daley opened the scoring 4:34 into the first period,
Hanzal leveled the contest nearly three minutes later by
accepting a feed from rookie Viktor Tikhonov and beating Turco.

The teams traded goals before Jokinen knotted the game at 3-3
with four seconds remaining in the second session.

With Phoenix on the power play, Jokinen unleashed a shot that
beat Turco just under the crossbar for his ninth goal of the
campaign.

"I had a pretty good chance there," Jokinen said. "Basically
Peter (Mueller) had a good shot from over there in the corner.
Somehow, the puck went through the traffic and I got a shot at
it and put it just under the bar."

"Everybody on that power play did a good job," Phoenix coach
Wayne Gretzky said. "To score a goal with (four) seconds left
in a period goes a long way for the team."

The late goal also frustrated the Stars.

"It's very frustrating," Dallas defenseman Darryl Sydor said.
"To allow a goal with (four) seconds left in the second is
frustrating. There are some positives, but this was a huge two
points that we left out there.

"We need more urgency and desperation, and I don't know if we
are pressing or not, but we need to be better. Every day is a
work day, and we have to keep scratching and clawing since we
are not that far off."